Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 19, 1990 TAG: 9005190252
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: DOUGLAS, ARIZ. LENGTH: Medium
"It was like something out of a James Bond movie," Customs spokeswoman Judy Turner said.
The tunnel was about the length of a football field and 30 feet underground, authorities said. They said the smuggling operation included a warehouse and elaborate entryways on both sides of the border.
Thomas McDermott, who heads the Customs Service in Arizona, told reporters that U.S. officials and members of the Mexican Judicial Police had arrested four members of the smuggling ring.
McDermott said they also confiscated the Agua Prieta, Mexico, house of businessman Rafael Francisco Camarena and two of Camarena's businesses - Douglas Building Supply and Douglas Redi-Mix Concrete.
The northern end of the tunnel was in a Douglas Building warehouse built eight months ago about 200 feet north of the fence that divides the two cities.
McDermott said the tunnel began in Camarena's house. The excavation was hidden in the family room beneath a concrete slab on which rested a pool table. He said that when an operator turned a small mechanism shaped like a spigot, an hydraulic lift boosted the slab, with pool table, about 5 feet into the air.
The tunnel was 5 feet high, 4 feet wide, well lighted, and lined with supports to prevent cave-ins, authorities said. At various points were compartments where up to 5 tons of drugs could be stashed.
On a tour of the warehouse, reporters were shown the northern entrance: a grate which, when lifted, revealed a 7-foot drop to a gangway about the size of a small bedroom. That led to a 30-foot-deep well down to the tunnel proper.
Over the well was a pulley and hoist system apparently used to raise drug packages.
The entrance and well were lined with concrete block.
McDermott said it probably took several months and $1.5 million to $2 million to build the tunnel.
by CNB